Personal Growth

When your retirement life feels constricted, you might ask whether you have outgrown yourself. Whaaaat — you ask? How can that happen? In all likelihood, you have outgrown your retirement lifestyle. You planned a fulfilling and exciting retirement — not one that feels smaller with each passing year. Outgrowing oneself may be a natural progression of […]

Planning for a successful new year can happen anytime as each day signals the beginning of another year. However, most people use late December and early January for reflection about the past year and for musing about the year to come. Taking stock of the past year is useful. Looking back prepares the brain for […]

Readers who reach a certain age and stage of life are familiar with the negatives of ageism. Older people are stereotyped — to a greater or lesser degree — as frail, helpless, irrelevant, troublesome, invisible, or demanding. Ageism is part of Western culture. It is often unintentional. Once someone is no longer in his or […]

Have you noticed that age changes your perspective on life? The ‘stuff’ of daily living matters less. There are fewer worries. It’s easier to ignore things that, in the past, might have led to anxiety, frustration, or anger. Negative events, though troubling, are more easily taken in stride. Thinking focuses on the present rather than dwelling […]

I’ve learned that we’re all born with a happiness baseline that can be improved from choices made every day. Happiness comes from within; increasing the natural happiness baseline comes from smart choices. Positive psychology studies refer to a ‘hedonic set point’ or general level of happiness that may go up or down during certain periods […]

In a few days, we will turn the page on 2017 and prepare for the ‘Happy New Year’ that is wished for us in almost every encounter. There is something special about a new year. The past is gone. A clean slate opens. It’s a time to anticipate fresh opportunities. A ‘Happy New Year’ won’t […]

How often do you go outside your comfort zone? Most of us like routines. We like predictability. We like to know what’s expected of us and know that we’ll be able to perform competently. A comfort zone is a safe place. We don’t want the stress of taking a risk on something new or unknown. […]

Every day I hear about the importance of clearing physical clutter but I don’t hear admonitions to clear mental clutter. When my brain fills with chatter and uncertainty about what I should be doing next, I know that it’s time to step back and clear the mental clutter. Junk floating around the brain is similar […]

“Art is the proper task of life“ — Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche’s 19th century writings on philosophy and the meaning of existence encouraged people to live artistically, attaining satisfaction with the self through adhering to aesthetic values and creating works of art and poetry that capture and convey some form of beauty. Did he mean that […]

A few days ago I overheard two people at the gym discussing the idea that emotional weight was more difficult to shed than physical weight. I was intrigued by this conversation. Early in my career I worked as a marriage and family therapist. Sometimes I felt the weight of the feelings in the therapy room. […]